


Bladecraft

by sarkywoman



Series: Witch-hunt [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: Prequel of sorts to 'Witch-hunt'. Diego may not be as strange as his brothers, but he's dangerous in his own way. Because of them, he has to be.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, Number Five | The Boy/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: Witch-hunt [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165172
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	Bladecraft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkflame/gifts).



> Prequel of sorts to Witch-hunt - https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411637  
> Not much of either pairing, just mentioned, but TUA fandom is very sensitive to pairings so I thought it best to tag.

When they are children, Klaus grows brave before Diego. He has no choice. The nightmares and visions quickly grow into a horror greater than the one held within their brother Ben.

Ben will overtake him in time in the race to his doom.

Their mother nearly goes first. So sick that one night when Diego wakes her arms are cold and stiff around him. He screams for his father and is taken from the room, traded for Klaus who remains in there with his mother and father for so long the sun sets. When the door opens, Klaus looks deathly exhausted. Their mother smiles but her eyes are dead and she seems... different. Their father remains the same. 

Diego watches his younger brothers cursed. 'Demon-touched', whisper the villagers, crossing themselves when Klaus smiles brightly and asks for a cake as a treat from the baker. They're not supposed to leave the house, but Klaus can't be contained. Running from the horrors that leak from the otherworld into his young head, he refuses to be contained in their comfortable home. Refuses to be chained to chores. Their father calls him idle, a strange word for a boy who never stops moving. 

It isn't Diego's job to watch over his brothers, but he is the eldest. Ben requires little attention (they think). Klaus wanders and behaves as though all rules are playthings. Levitates in the garden. Conjures the dead when stressed. Steals mother's clothes.

For most of their youth, Diego escapes notice. Works hard in the village helping anyone who needs it. Learns half of half a dozen trades. In the winter he enjoys the heat of the blacksmith's forge. The smith is getting older and appreciates an attentive helper with quicker limbs. Diego appreciates the blades honed to a fine edge. He's gifted one for all his help and he plays at throwing it at targets.

Few enough soldiers and warriors pass through the village, that it doesn't occur to his young mind that he should ever miss his mark. It becomes a calming hobby, watching the blade pierce the target neatly each time. Klaus enjoys watching, picking more difficult targets each time. 

In their teenage years, the blacksmith passes and ownership of the forge returns to their father, who owns more than his fair share of the village. Fighting down a stutter Diego stands before the man, head held high, and asks to work the forge. 

Reginald's only hesitance is a blink, as if he doesn't understand the request. Then he shrugs. 

_"Very well."_

And just like that, Diego has a vocation. 

His _other_ vocation continues, trying to protect his boneheaded brother. (Ben protects himself. Until he doesn't.) Klaus, for his part, wanders in and out of the forge by their home as if the proximity makes it just another outbuilding for him to lounge around in. He scolds the smith's daughter Eudora for leading Diego on and not making an honest man of him. 

When Klaus is turned out of the forge and everyone's blushes subside, Eudora mentions she wouldn't be _opposed_ to making an honest man of Diego... if he ever deigned to court her.

He deigns.

Ben becomes more withdrawn from them, more occupied with the horrors beneath his skin that he cannot control. Diego reaches out to him time and time again, but what Ben battles is something a simple smithy can't help with. 

Klaus is caught in a haystack with a soldier from a troop passing through the village and Diego has to step in to defend him from men who can't abide that sort of thing. Four against one, the odds are not in his favour. Klaus, wobbly-legged from stolen wine, hardly counts as an ally. Diego pulls his knife. It doesn't matter that he's never fought before. Klaus is depending on him. The men laugh. 

Three walk away. The fourth had pushed too far and Diego had killed without considering it at length. 

_"Do you think I'm a bad person, Dora?"_

_"No. You worry too much."_

_"Bad people can worry too."_

_"You worry too much about other people. Go back to sleep."_

One of the wounded dies later of infection. There's an investigation - he was cared for in Agnes' inn. The villagers consider their well-made trowels, axes and shears, and tell the inquisitive men that the injuries and deaths seemed to be a result of in-fighting. No matter what the injured soldiers claimed, that was the story the villagers kept to. 

Diego warns Klaus to behave.

_"I won't always be there to save you, you know."_

_"Oh, Dee." Pale hands with painted black nails pat his chest. "Don't underestimate yourself."_

One moon later, Klaus takes a tumble after too much wine. Down the stairs in the house, for all that Diego thought harm would come to him elsewhere. Ben is the one to find him, broken and still at the bottom of the stairs. Their father won't allow a doctor. It's up to their mother to use the knowledge of potions and healing rituals that their father taught her. The man himself only checks in as an idle curiosity.

The forge goes cold while Diego keeps a vigil over his brother and their doting mother. Nobody thinks to check on Ben. 

Their mother's potions leave Klaus slow and foggy. Klaus learns to make them himself, takes to wandering the forest for fresh ingredients.

_"How can you even see in the night?"_

_"Moonlight!"_

_"Barely any moon last night."_

_For a while Klaus silently draws patterns on the floor of the forge in the dust. Strange symbols, like the ones Diego sometimes finds himself etching into blades._

_"Ghosts glow, you know."_

Thankfully, the villagers eventually embrace their strange boys. Perhaps it's fear of their landlord, the ever-stern Reginald Hargreeves. Perhaps it's Klaus' smiles and stories. Perhaps it's Diego's willingness to provide high-quality tools and weapons. 

One day they use the weapons of one brother to kill another. 

Diego lets the forge cool for three months. Hides from the world in Eudora's bed and ignores Klaus when he visits. He wishes he had never put iron to the coals. But no other steel had worked. The soldiers from out of town had no success with their swords. Only Diego's steel had cut clean through the otherworldly vines sprawling from what once was Ben. 

They say his work is blessed. Diego wonders if it takes a monster to stop a monster. If his blades are cursed. 

It isn't until the witch-hunter comes that Diego stirs from his self-pity. Eudora warns him. A friendly man at the inn, but the Commission insignia on his cloak. 

His name is Hazel. Diego buys him a drink and tells him all about the monster. Hazel drinks the drink and tells him all about the Commission. 

They take in those of incisive mind, train them to reject the strange and unholy. Hunters and killers, seeking to rid the world of demon-touched. Schooled to recognise the telltale signs of spiritual deviancy and supernatural power. Hazel had been sent to investigate tales of a monster, to find out its origins and ascertain whether it could return or pose a threat. 

It's not easy to shrug it off, but Diego does. Explains that the monster killed his brother. That he created the weapons himself that slayed it. 

Realises it's true. What they killed, it wasn't Ben. Just like Klaus had been saying all along.

_"Trust me, Dee. He's grateful. Well, to an extent. He never wanted to hurt anyone, you know that."_

_Klaus looks to the side, smiling at words said by a brother that Diego can't embrace anymore._

_"Tell him I'm sorry anyway."_

_"He says you don't have to be."_

By the time Hazel finds out the whole story, he's not inclined to do anything with the knowledge. Fattened on Agnes' baked goods and relaxed by the distance of the Commission regulations, the man burns his Commission cloak during a riotous evening drinking with Klaus. 

The forge is hot and glowing again and Diego keeps the village well-supplied. The work comes easy. His creations last longer than the previous smith's. Nearly everyone in the village has something from him. Everyone but Eudora. He's crafting something special for her. Something delicate.

He's deep in his work when Hazel comes by one evening.

"Hey. We have a problem."

"Klaus dancing on the tables at the inn again?"

"Worse. There's a stranger in town. Klaus is chatting with him."

Diego sets his work aside carefully. "Am I gonna need to escort this stranger out of town?"

Sometimes Klaus' 'suitors' leave without a fuss. Sometimes they even get what they want out of his brother first. But there's a patch of earth not far out of town with a knife sunk in the dirt to mark a grave. Diego would prefer not to make another, but he's long resigned to the fact that he'll do what he needs to in order to protect his brother's secrets, to keep him in the village where he can help care for their mother who never truly recovered from her... sickness. 

Hazel takes a deep breath. "The guy's got a Commission insignia on his cloak."

"Fuck."

Diego's at the inn before the coals cool. Agnes meets his eyes and nods towards the bench at the back. 

Klaus is hanging on every word of the sharp and polished young man. Diego has seen his brother foolish for a handsome man many a time, but he doesn't like the look in his eyes. 

"Brother, time to come home. I can't keep footing your bill here."

"Then allow me," says the Commission shit, regally. He places a few silver on the table. Enough for the drinks and then some. He smiles - no, smirks - at Diego. "You must be the big brother I've heard so much of."

"Diego Hargreeves."

"Number Five."

He has a firm handshake, but Diego's is stronger. Working an anvil all day builds strength as well as character. 

"Odd name."

"Fitting for an odd place, perhaps." Still with that damned smirk. "Your brother was just telling me about some of the strangeness that occurs here."

Diego glares at Klaus. "My brother has a very active imagination and it's time for him to come home."

"Oh, but Dee, I was going to show him the forest."

"Another night perhaps." It's no effort to manhandle Klaus up off the bench, drunk as he is. In the morning he can explain the danger. For now he just has to avoid it. 

Outside in the dim evening light, Diego steadies Klaus and ignores his whining that he was "just getting to know the newcomer, bein'... welcoming and shit... plus he's so straight-laced, I kinda wanna..."

He glances back to the inn.

'Number Five' is watching them coolly, sipping his ale. 

It looks like the grave outside the village will be getting a neighbour.


End file.
